Reports

Remembering Kovilan

Kovilan, the Malayalam litterateur who died last month, was a unique writer of his age. He was a freedom fighter, a communist, a disciplined soldier and rebellious author. Although he lived as a writer in the high periods of realistic movement, modernism and post modernism of Malayalam literature, he walked along an entirely different path, without getting included in the arithmetic of these marches. Kovilan drew his attention to all the marginalized sections of the society, especially to dalits and women, and wrote their stories from the point of view of proletariat class, in an earthy language. The ruling class always uses food as a weapon against the common people. As a story teller of hunger; Kovilan conveyed the politics of food through many of his writings.  He wrote “Thttakam”, his master piece, a novel in the dalit perspective, even before great debates on dalit literature were started in Malayalam literary field. His important novels include “Bharathan”, “Thottangal”, “Himalayam” and “A minus B”, which were unique writings, dealing with certain particular fields.
Kovilan is the name of the hero of a great saga in Tamil, who was disgraced, tortured and brutally killed by the power. V.V. Ayyappan took the name of this great hero as his own name in the literary field. The selection of this name itself was a sign of his commitment to oppressed class. He was a staunch supporter of progressive movements in Kerala. He participated in the first meeting of the revolutionary writers and activists of Kerala that lead to the formation of Janakeeya Samskarika Vedi (People’s Cultural Forum), the revolutionary cultural organization that took up great cultural struggles in seventies and early eighties. He was the Chair Person of the Anti Fascist Convention conducted at Thrissur under the leadership of the revolutionary forces. Kovilan’s death is a great loss to Malayalam literature and the progressive cultural forces in Kerala.